Dynasty Warriors Next Review: Fun and Addictive Strategic Action

Dynasty Warriors Next is a tactical action title available on the PlayStation Vita. In this game you will be going up against thousands of warriors and taking down a number of enemy strongholds. You will play the role of many characters as you set out to bring peace to the land. The storyline that it follows isn’t particularly special though when it comes to the main campaign and it’s cut-scenes, they are quite enjoyable to watch.

Dynasty Warriors Next has a campaign mode for you to enjoy as well as a conquest mode. Campaign mode is a lot of fun to play as you will have a vast amount of territories to overtake and conquer. In each territory, you have multiple camps that you need or should overtake before you proceed to the enemies main camp. There are usually 3 to 5 camps for you to overtake. It’s fun using strategy to occupy specific enemy bases. Sometimes, when allowed, it’s fun to jump right into your enemies main camp and defeat that level right away.

Before you select a territory to invade you will be able to look at the territory information. This shows you their officer type and information. It also shows you all of their attributes. Knowing that information, you can then select a stratagem for the upcoming match where you can purchase conditions that can prove useful in the match. You will be able to purchase abilities, such as increasing the defense of your entire army, increasing your characters attack, increasing the attack speed and so on.

Also before you start a battle, you will be taken to a set up screen where you can choose the battle preparation screen. This is where you can edit your characters weapon and equip certain items that will give your character a boost in battle. You will also be able to see the victory and defeat conditions for that match. It also shows you the unit information and base information, which gives you a good idea of what you are going up against.

Throughout the game you will come across many weapons and items for you to collect. You will also randomly get to purchase items from a seller when he decides to show up and offer you something. Eventually you will be able to increase the items level and ability as you continue to use them in battle.

Also featured in Dynasty Warriors Next is an edit mode where you can create and edit your own warrior. As you play the game you will unlock a number of different items for you to use when creating your warriors. There is also a Gallery which lists all of the officer cards that you have collected and what percentage of the total you have yet to collect. Same goes for weapons, items and movies. It also displays your rank, overall ‘Experience points’, ‘Total KO’s’, ‘Play Time’ and ‘Experience Ranking’. So there are a lot of nice stats available for you to look at and enjoy as you play through the game.

Game play – AI – Controls

I must say that I really got into the gameplay with Dynasty Warriors Next. It’s comes off very smooth and easy to control. The camera every now and then can get a little annoying, but I don’t see anyone complaining about it, as it’s not a big issue at all. Just something you may notice every now and then.

It’s fun to play with a lot of the different characters using their own specific special abilities. For some of them, it’s just being able to fight with their choice of weapon. I’ve always been a hack and slash guy and enjoy my action games by playing them that way. So when the time came to play a mission using the guy with a bow & arrow, I immediately said to myself “Oh, great!” I usually don’t care for that part of an action game, but I must say, this guy was a lot of fun to control in this type of setting with his bow and arrow. The way his abilities where set up made it so that it wasn’t overly hard at all. In fact, I enjoyed using his character a lot which caught me by surprise. That just goes to say, this game has 65 playable characters and it’s a lot of fun to experiment and play with the different character types.

When it comes to attacking, you have your regular attack and a secondary attack. You can mix and match those depending on how you press your buttons in order to do different attacks. It’s very easy to get that down and see how each character fights using different attack options. You also have your special attack option that when a meter fills up, you will be able to unleash that special attack. Then there is another meter that will fill up over time unleashing a large scale attack. For some characters, when you use that ability it will allow you to capture an enemy base immediately.

When it comes to the controls, the game feels really good, and especially so with the touch screen controls. You will get yourself involved in multiple duels in the game where the duels are accomplished by touch screen only. The duels are great to play out using the touch screen and handles really well. You will swipe the touch screen to attack as well as tap and hold your character to block. You’ll have to be smart about when you attack, because they only need to hit you a couple of times to cause you to lose the duel. It’s important to block first and attack after their attempt. There will also be times where your swords will lock up and a bunch of touch circles will start appearing on the screen. It is important to tap those circles as fast as possible in order to win that part of the duel.

Throughout the campaign, there are a number of “minigames” that will come up, such as the duels. There will also be moments where an “ambush” happens and you will need to use the touch screen to swipe at objects or soldiers that are coming at you. You will also have times where you ride a horse and you will need to “race” your way through obstacles in a timely matter. You will be able to use a special boost button to ram through things every once in awhile but most of the time you will have to precisely jump over obstacles. These “minigames” are pretty well done and fun to play. The one I didn’t like involves using the gyro controls to aim and shoot by tapping the back touch screen. I never got a good feel for the gyro controls. I didn’t think they handled well at all, and could have been a lot more smooth.

This game is certainly addicting, whether you are playing it on easy mode with no real competition, or if you are playing on a higher difficulty where you need to be aware of what highlighted enemies are around you. Doing it both ways is a lot of fun, though I would recommend you start on a higher difficulty so that you get a proper feel for the game.

Sound – Graphics

Visually the game looks very good with nice character motions when attacking. The cut-scenes are also very well done. It has a nice soundtrack going for it and the voice acting for the characters isn’t to bad either.

Enjoyment Level – Fun Factor

I actually ended up enjoying this title a lot more than what I was expecting to. I’m not sure why I was leaning one way or the other before playing it, but when I started going through this game I ended up having a wonderful time with it. I enjoyed the action, the strategy of overtaking enemy camps, I loved how they used the touch screen for the duels. It really is quite the fun game for those who like action titles in which there are thousands of enemies waiting to meet your blade in just a matter of minutes. My level of fun with this title is right near the top. Any title that keeps me playing to acquire trophies means that I am having a good time with it.

Final Notes

This game can end up keeping you busy for a very long time. It keeps track of a good number of stats for you as revealing an online ranking of your experience points. It also features a gala mode where you can play those “mini-games” and it will keep record of your best time or score. You can then upload your time or score to an online leader-board so that you can see where you rank.

The entire online functionality is something that can be slightly confusing. When playing Conquest mode you can “Play Online”, but how it works is that it obtains other players data and registers them as an enemy officer. You can however play offline and not worry about that. If you do play online, in the Gallery mode, you will see another option for “Other Players” which lists how many players you have come across in conquest mode. It also shows their player profile which includes rank, number of KO’s and percentage of items acquired. It can be interesting to mess with when you play in conquest mode.

Andrew StevensAndrew Stevens is a Guest Editor at FanBolt for Gaming and Technology. He has over 8 years of experience working within the gaming industry which includes time at Bethesda Softworks. His unique view of the industry and passion for gaming can be found within each one of his editorials. Andrew also loves PC gaming and enjoys tinkering with new hardware. He also can’t get enough speed when it comes to racing games and doesn’t mind navigating through swarms of bullets in any shmup. He considers Rez as the greatest game ever.
Andrew's opinions are his own and do not reflect the opinions of his place of employment.

Nice lengthy review!! I’ve always been meaning to play a Dynasty Warriors game but never got around to it. It’s almost reminiscent of Pokemon how a new game comes out every few months and it’s such a huge series. Anyway, the screenshots of this Vita installment look nice and it seems to have a well detailed interface.

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